RecycleMania Taps Enthusiasm for the Environment

Six weeks after joining a nation-wide contest to see who can best keep their bottles, cans and cardboard out of landfills, the residents of Queen’s Court, Salice-Conley Hall and McMahon Hall are in the lead for Fordham's biggest recycler.

According to statistics compiled weekly, the Rose Hill campus’ Queen's Court has recycled the most paper and cardboard, at five pounds per person. Nearby Salice-Conley Hall is leading the charge with glass, metal and plastic, at 6.70 pounds per person.

When it comes to keeping trash out of the system though, students at the 10 residence halls in the Bronx have nothing on their Manhattan brethren. Residents of McMahon Hall, which is on the Lincoln Center campus, have generated 9.75 pounds of trash per person.

RecycleMania, an annual contest between colleges around the country to see who can recycle more during an eight-week period, started in 2001 as a competition between Miami University of Ohio and Ohio University, and now features 630 schools.

This is the first year Fordham has participated in the contest, in the informal “Benchmark” division. In both the formal and informal divisions, schools submit weight data for paper, cardboard, cans and bottles, food waste and general trash each week, and are in turn able to see how they measure up against each other.

Since the competition began, a total of 45 tons of material have been collected from Fordham residence halls. The contest runs through April 2, so there is still time left to earn bragging rights as the greenest among them all.

For more information, visit http://www.recyclemania.org/

—Patrick Verel